Guild Wars 2

My self-summary

29-year old guild leader. Played GW since GW1 BWEs (though took a long break after Nightfall until GW2 BWEs). Played GW2 with tons of real-life friends until they quit 3 months after launch, only a few left. Spend more time in GW2 with girlfriend than we see each other outside of the game. Have made many new friends thanks to GW2 and am heavily invested in its future.

What I’m doing with my life

Working for a software company. Have a background in software engineering, though not specifically game development. Understand the limitations of resource prioritization, development challenges, mixing overall strategy with tactical changes to please userbase.

I’m really good at

Going between the customer and the engineers. Office Space had it right, you can’t just let the engineers talk to the customer.

The first things people usually notice about me

Altaholic. (Up to 10 toons now).

The six things I could not do without

Mesmer bug fixes.
Improved progression systems.
Regularly-scheduled additional permanent content.
More reasons to form guilds/communities.
Better balance of rewards across game modes.
Grumble cakes.

I spend a lot of time thinking about

Why doesn’t ArenaNet form a Players’ Council – a set of representatives from the community who actively play the game. Sign them to an NDA and get first-hand feedback about designs and plans. Not to necessarily guide long-term strategies (though it could serve that purpose as well), but to get a quick “design check” from the community on plans when there is still time to change them.

You know, so we don’t keep getting 300g/color commander tags.

On a typical Friday night I am

WvW server reset meeting. Playing Fractals with my guild. Doing some WvW. Spending my time ignoring my real life friends and hanging with my guildies.

The most private thing I am willing to admit

I play this game like a second job. I put in my 40+ hours of regular work and about the same in GW2.

I’m looking for

Developers Aged 18-99

You should message me if

There’s anything I can do to help. Programmers know that it’s helpful to get a second pair of eyes to look at your code; sometimes the mistake will be instantly obvious to somebody else even if you’ve spent hours looking at it. This is why real news sources have editors: you need that second perspective.

I know the CDI was supposed to be this initiative, but opening it up to everybody presents two problems: too much feedback and the inability for developers to openly discuss potential future plans. This is why you need small groups and NDAs.

tl;dr

This is an extension of some thoughts I had over on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2dvw7g/guild_wars_2_interview_part_1_general_game_living/cjtl2pg

I got enough upvotes over there that I figured I’d try posting here as well.

I love you, ArenaNet, but please start to get feedback directly from players in a more detailed, responsive, iterative manner instead of having community managers read through the forums and try to sum it up for you. (That is simply an impossible job and I have a lot of sympathy for the poor folks who are responsible for going through all the nonsense here.)

I feel like you’re missing the mark on some of these updates by simply not understanding why people want feature X and it’s depressing. At the very least, pilot this idea with a single new feature and see how it goes.

The CDI’s are a better way to do this. That way everyone has a voice. When you limit the scope of who you are listening to you limit your feedback to the opinions of a few people and those people that they listen to. It’s worked terribly in LOTRO, and I don’t trust it would do any better here.

Totally respect that, but here’s my concern: ArenaNet has shown an unwillingness to lay out detailed future plans in CDIs. If they don’t want to let us know what’s coming, smaller group + NDA seems like the only option.

I don’t think they should stop the CDIs, but I think they need to get more detailed feedback on ideas. Or at least have an avenue to ask questions.

When I hear things like, “Oh, we don’t want to do first-person mode because combat would suffer,” it makes me really question whether they understand why people want these features.

I hear you. The problem with even having a player council, it will not affect how they release info. They decided internally to stay tight-lipped from now on. Heck, even during the CDIs they said they were not going to tell us any info.

I think the way they were asking for concise info in the CDIs was great. Whether or not people adhered to that or could explain in a detailed manner their ideas doesn’t matter.

Councils ultimately limit the scope of feedback. I think that is detrimental to development, especially with a company like ArenaNet who are a little more forward thinking in their design approach. The iterative process has pluses and minuses. One of those minuses is information. The precursor crafting debacle springs to mind. The design team thought it sounded great, but it’s obvious there were others in the company hierarchy that decided it wasn’t going to happen. That is why they aren’t communicating with us anymore. They change their mind too often when it comes to the direction of the game and we in the community hold them to every dotted "I"and “T” and every period in every sentence they say.

As to the camera stuff, yeah. I don’t know why people bother interviewing them anymore. It’s all canned responses, rhetoric, and “soon”. The precursor bit in that interview was so disheartening. They keep saying they are working on stuff with results appearing very infrequently over things that the community is really interested in.

I’m thinking about things like the 300g/color Commander Tags. Something got lost along the way. It’s entirely possible that ArenaNet expected the huge outpouring of negative feedback, but I think it’s far more likely that they’ve lost touch with the playerbase somewhat and are making poor decisions because of it.

If they went to a small group of players (I’m thinking in the 100 range) and said, “Hey guys, here’s an outline for what we were thinking, does anything stand out as a huge problem?” they’d have an opportunity for early feedback and design iteration.

Again, this information would be provided under an NDA, so the early design stages wouldn’t be seen by the broader community. It’s not intended as a fix for communication, it’s a fix for unintended consequences of updates.

Iason Evan.3806:

I hear you. The problem with even having a player council, it will not affect how they release info. They decided internally to stay tight-lipped from now on. Heck, even during the CDIs they said they were not going to tell us any info.

I think the way they were asking for concise info in the CDIs was great. Whether or not people adhered to that or could explain in a detailed manner their ideas doesn’t matter.

Councils ultimately limit the scope of feedback. I think that is detrimental to development, especially with a company like ArenaNet who are a little more forward thinking in their design approach. The iterative process has pluses and minuses. One of those minuses is information. The precursor crafting debacle springs to mind. The design team thought it sounded great, but it’s obvious there were others in the company hierarchy that decided it wasn’t going to happen. That is why they aren’t communicating with us anymore. They change their mind too often when it comes to the direction of the game and we in the community hold them to every dotted "I"and “T” and every period in every sentence they say.

As to the camera stuff, yeah. I don’t know why people bother interviewing them anymore. It’s all canned responses, rhetoric, and “soon”. The precursor bit in that interview was so disheartening. They keep saying they are working on stuff with results appearing very infrequently over things that the community is really interested in.

Yeah I agree. They are tight lipped, because everything said is taken way out of context and abused. But mainly on what you said about working on stuff the community is really interested in. Which community? The forum community or the in game community? We all know the forums are full of QQers, haters, and those who have very little clue about anything. While those who may have great insight into what would be a very beneficial way to implement something new are in-game and never touch the forums.

Take the megaservers. Many raged on the forums about how a terrible idea this was, how it was a sure sign the game is dead, how it would totally suck and they were going to quit because it was such a bad idea. They few that actually liked the idea were labeled “white knights” and worse. In game discussions were quite different. Many people were looking forward to it, and were excited about the idea of no longer having to guest on servers to find people to do world bosses, no more worries about empty lower level zones, and being able to play with and meet new people. Almost polar opposites on the matter.

@timmyf: Yeah. I agree with the Commander Tag stuff. They completely missed the point of the functionality being a Quality of life thing. They turned it into a gold sink and soured a lot of folks opinions of it entirely for sure.

I think a huge portion of the issues(and also awesomeness) of ArenaNet is that they are so insular in their company. So many of them are friends, get along and the game is their passion and that makes it a great place to work at. The issue though is they are too close to the game in some regards and they lose sight of the things that hurt the game or they hold on to design philosophies longer than is healthy for the game. IDK that any of them get the time they need to really step back from the game and look at the big picture. Skill splits are a prime example of this. There are more than a few skills for certain classes that are being designed around the capture points in sPvP and instead of said skills getting different versions for WvW and PvE their functionality is going to suffer so that they can be balanced for a single format.

I could go on and on but won’t. I have the same issue of really caring about this game too much and I need to take a step back from it as well. The things I think would be healthy additions are not lined up with what the devs want. I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

Iason Evan.3806:

I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

This would be easier if they didn’t keep saying, “Oh, we hear what you’re saying, here’s a horribly-implemented version of that thing you requested.”

Also, Megaserver is a great example of this. There are, in my eyes, two things they either missed or undervalued in the design of megaservers.

1) No way to “force affinity.” It’s nice that Megaserver has an affinity system for placement, but it seems the only affinity we received was for home world, guild, and party. Friendslist was supposed to be implemented but was not. But what about communities which stretch beyond? RP folks are one huge example, but there are many others. Having a “Role” flag (Role Playing, Dungeons, Fractals, WvW, PvP, Casual, etc options) would have gone a long way in allowing players to find communities of players who are similar.

2) Huge challenges for WvW/guild recruiting and development. This could have been helped with the addition of world chat or leaving certain areas megaserver free.

I like the megaserver overall, but these are huge unsolved problems. It’s now been, what, 4 months? And there’s no word that they’re even trying to fix these, much less implementing and testing fixes.

timmyf.1490:

Iason Evan.3806:

I just need to either enjoy what they make or stop playing.

This would be easier if they didn’t keep saying, “Oh, we hear what you’re saying, here’s a horribly-implemented version of that thing you requested.”

Or, like that youtube interview they just posted saying yet again that precursor changes are happening. The waiting gets tedious, but again, this is I am sure is one of the reasons they have been tight lipped and I can’t say as I disagree with them for that. I would be as well.

They do take far too long to implement stuff though in this game. Coming from GW1 and the absolute deluge of content we had in two years time(3 full games!) to this has been a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes I think they need to halt all new content that they have ideas for and work solely on things they have been talking up for the better part of two years. Fans have a right to be impatient with things that the devs said were going to be in the game. It’s not entitlement if you are told, “Hey this awesome thing is coming! Get HYPE!” and then you wait for over a year and a half for it(precursors). Heck, Colin hinted at it in December when talking about new stuff, that it was gonna be delayed a bit, but that totally sounded like it was almost ready and here we are headed to September…and nada y pues y pues nada.

Exactly. That said, having limited resources is a valid reason why the updates have been slow. That’s not my concern. My concern is, when we do get these updates, they often miss the mark in completely avoidable ways.

Commander Tag Colors don’t need to be a gold sink. Megaserver didn’t have to destroy intra-server communication. Wardrobe/Skin Locker didn’t have to be insanely expensive to keep your gear updated while leveling. Trait Hunting didn’t have to include incredibly time-consuming unlocks or level 80 unlocks for Adept traits.

I don’t have a lot of insight into ArenaNet, but what I see are VERY talented individuals who are just slightly missing the mark in really frustrating ways. But it’s very hard to step out of your situation, your particular point of view, to see little problems like this.

Players like us, though, can recognize these almost immediately. “Oh, we’ll be put on a map with people from all the servers? Cool. Wait, how am I going to broadcast info for my WvW event without giving that information to the enemy? At least guesting requires them to manually take those steps to join us. Now they’ll just be sitting with me in the same map?”

How do we know they don’t already have a player council, with the names of the guilty, er, I mean members kept secret to protect them from the rest of us?

Anyway, Cryptic tried this over in STO a few years ago. It went kinda like this:

Well, I do my best to remain optimistic. PM me for my digits, Anet. ;-)

You do know that there are a lot of ANet devs that play in guilds on the various servers and they get feedback a lot, they even sometimes ask for it…

Either way, a group of players under NDA typically isn’t good, since at worst, a player losing his account is about all they could do.

The fact is that we KNOW that they at least at one point after release DID have a player-based feedback group. Which may or may not have been scrapped after some people in said group started spreading secret and NDA:ed information from said group.

munkiman.3068:

Either way, a group of players under NDA typically isn’t good, since at worst, a player losing his account is about all they could do.

Actually, legal action for violation of an NDA is definitely possible. Not that they’d go that far. Even if the only option is account termination, it’s certainly not a risk I would take.

I’m not sure that my particular recommendation is the right answer, but I hope we can agree that they need to do something to get feedback earlier in the development process.

lordkrall.7241:

The fact is that we KNOW that they at least at one point after release DID have a player-based feedback group. Which may or may not have been scrapped after some people in said group started spreading secret and NDA:ed information from said group.

I hadn’t heard this, but shame on anybody who was involved in leaking that information. It’s maddening when jerks ruin good things for so many people.

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

It’s true that the Devs that play the game ask us what we are thinking. I spoke to one last Friday for awhile, and she asked me without any prompting. She also said she would pass my thoughts along to the powers-that-be.

Considering how much the Devs aren’t allowed to say, we never know if something is right around the corner….or not. /shrug

We requested this at nearly the 1 year mark. They ignored it then too. They despirately need a player council. We need representatives of all class mains in this thing. They need people from every play style in it to make it work properly. It’s out of hand the things that they’ve ignored this long I just don’t see how people are still giving them money like really ….I don’t get it.

The connection they had with players in the beginning has been gone since Nov 2012. I really don’t understand how people can’t see that when looking at something so simple as an essential UI update for example.

Iason Evan.3806:

The CDI’s are a better way to do this. That way everyone has a voice. When you limit the scope of who you are listening to you limit your feedback to the opinions of a few people and those people that they listen to. It’s worked terribly in LOTRO, and I don’t trust it would do any better here.

Except that’s not how it’s working. I’ve gone over things in the CDI’s they are still ignoring many of the majority of players. Basically the CDI’s aren’t even working.

timmyf.1490:

lordkrall.7241:

The fact is that we KNOW that they at least at one point after release DID have a player-based feedback group. Which may or may not have been scrapped after some people in said group started spreading secret and NDA:ed information from said group.

I hadn’t heard this, but shame on anybody who was involved in leaking that information. It’s maddening when jerks ruin good things for so many people.

I really agreed with your post about implementation from really talented folks. Spot on observations. I also agree with your sentiment of a player council, but in practice they end up a lot like communism: Great on paper, but poor in reality. Player councils often serve their own interests or the interests of a very small subset of players.

Skill design is already headed down that path. sPvP has such a small population in terms of the three formats(WvW, PvE, sPvP) yet most skill design is based around Conquest. So many weapon sets are absolutely useless, yet skill splits would allow the devs to design specific weapons to be used in one format and forsaking the others. Options are awesome. We have so few. I would never use Mace/Mace for Warrior in PvE or WvW and barely consider it now for sPvP. So they are kinda viable for one format and nothing viable can come out of them for a single format? That’s garbage.

I think they miss the entirety of what we are communicating. I brought up a point that if we can’t have skill splits then why can’t we have a shifting meta every month or two? Actual skill changes that happen twice a year when you only have one PvP format makes for really stale PvP. Change up the meta often and only having one format is less tiring because you are constantly shifting what is viable in terms of game play and weapons and utilities etc.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

It’s true that the Devs that play the game ask us what we are thinking. I spoke to one last Friday for awhile, and she asked me without any prompting. She also said she would pass my thoughts along to the powers-that-be.

Considering how much the Devs aren’t allowed to say, we never know if something is right around the corner….or not. /shrug

To me that’s no longer a problem you see people were like “this game is only 3 months old” and such in the beginning and they used that as an excuse to ignore the plethora of warning signs we began to see in the game post Nov 2012. Now they are using the age old “we don’t know everything that’s going on” nonsense. We’ve not known everything that’s been going on since day one. That’s not excuse for the sheer ignorant levels of ignored problems that have not been a priority since day one. Things that even the major publishers who write about this game and who have been major fans have noticed of late. It’s like they are a government, isolated from the people, doing whatever paperwork comes along without any regard for how it will affect gameplay, putting out propaganda commercials occasionally to keep the patriotism flowing.

I just don’t get how people can continue to support this kind of thing, sure they’ve made mistakes and sure we don’t know everything behind the scenes but really how long are people just going to sit around with blinders on before they too finally realize that “hey there’s something wrong here?”

We need at the very least a player council at this point because even the CDI’s have failed.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

If this exists and is active, either the players are not giving the right feedback, Anet is not giving enough detail to get the right feedback, or the feedback that is being given is being ignored.

I’m in no place to say which of those is the case.

If this is true, though, ArenaNet should consider either shuffling the players involved, changing the level of detail they provide, or taking the feedback more seriously, respectively.

So, who chooses this ‘Player Council’? Whose desires are given weight? I know most of mine are not represented on the forums.

I can’t see anything good coming of making such a thing public. But hey!, that’s just me.

timmyf.1490:

If this exists and is active, either the players are not giving the right feedback, Anet is not giving enough detail to get the right feedback, or the feedback that is being given is being ignored.

And who are you to decide what is right feedback?
Right is a matter of opinion. Something that you feel is right might be the completely opposite for a couple of other people and so on.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

So, who chooses this ‘Player Council’? Whose desires are given weight? I know most of mine are represented on the forums.

I can’t see anything good coming of making such a thing public. But hey!, that’s just me.

ArenaNet chooses the members, probably based on Anet employee selection. The community management folks here could easily pick out a handful of thoughtful folks for inclusion. I think community self-selection is a terrible idea and wouldn’t trust forum-goers to select responsible individuals.

Members should be kept private for (what I hope are) pretty obvious reasons.

tigirius.9014:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

It’s true that the Devs that play the game ask us what we are thinking. I spoke to one last Friday for awhile, and she asked me without any prompting. She also said she would pass my thoughts along to the powers-that-be.

Considering how much the Devs aren’t allowed to say, we never know if something is right around the corner….or not. /shrug

To me that’s no longer a problem you see people were like “this game is only 3 months old” and such in the beginning and they used that as an excuse to ignore the plethora of warning signs we began to see in the game post Nov 2012. Now they are using the age old “we don’t know everything that’s going on” nonsense. We’ve not known everything that’s been going on since day one. That’s not excuse for the sheer ignorant levels of ignored problems that have not been a priority since day one. Things that even the major publishers who write about this game and who have been major fans have noticed of late. It’s like they are a government, isolated from the people, doing whatever paperwork comes along without any regard for how it will affect gameplay, putting out propaganda commercials occasionally to keep the patriotism flowing.

I just don’t get how people can continue to support this kind of thing, sure they’ve made mistakes and sure we don’t know everything behind the scenes but really how long are people just going to sit around with blinders on before they too finally realize that “hey there’s something wrong here?”

We need at the very least a player council at this point because even the CDI’s have failed.

All I can go off of for player councils is how they worked in games I have played. LOTRO’s is awful. Zero communication with the regular populace. The last expansion, “Helm’s Deep” suffered because of it. STO’s was a joke. I think it is close to impossible for players to actually put the interests of the gamers at large in front of things they personally desire.

I know the things I desire are completely different than what 95% of the population would see implemented. The truth of the matter is that there are a lot people who have limited game time. They like this game because they can log in, play a few hours a week, get new story content and items to chase and it’s satisfying. I play enough that the story content every two weeks doesn’t even take up a single play session for me. Does that mean I don’t think the content is well executed? Far from it! I think this season has been really good.

I feel like they are going with what appeals to the most broad audience, it’s just that the broad audience is so casual in their playstyle that I don’t trust those people to know what makes for good design or skill implementation etc.

I feel like if you put a Council in the hands of the hard core PvP crowd, then you see all skill design rotating around Conquest. What happens when you put the Council in the hands of WvW? The same thing.

lordkrall.7241:

timmyf.1490:

If this exists and is active, either the players are not giving the right feedback, Anet is not giving enough detail to get the right feedback, or the feedback that is being given is being ignored.

And who are you to decide what is right feedback?
Right is a matter of opinion. Something that you feel is right might be the completely opposite for a couple of other people and so on.

If there exists a player feedback device that did not throw a fit over 300 gold per commander tag color, that feedback device is not working properly.

If so, then for all we know, it already happens. This privately-selected group may just have different opinions on what is viable and desirable for the game.

Who knows?

You can say your thoughts, your friend’s thoughts, your Guildie’s thoughts are something else, but no one knows what the/a Player Council would suggest. Or maybe it is split 50/50 like the forum posters are on soooo many topics? Then who decides? I would guess ArenaNet. It’s their game, their vision.

Personally, I would rather the Game Designers choose the content and features, but again, that’s just me. /shrug

I’m fine with this:

SkylightMoon.1980:

As a player it feels like Anet chooses to do what they want more than what the players demand.

But this is where I see the problem:

SkylightMoon.1980:

A dev actually though we wanted it for combat purposes which is insane.

It seems like they are getting the message that “players want X,” but they’re missing the reason or the specifics and implementing the features poorly. I keep harping on colored commander tags because it’s such a perfect encapsulation of the problem.

The purpose of colors is to allow multiple commanders on a map to take on different roles and be easier to follow. The cost is so prohibitive, though, it will be hard to guarantee multiple commanders will have the right color to be able to switch. You’re going to have commanders having to negotiate and figure out who should be which color.

timmyf.1490:

If there exists a player feedback device that did not throw a fit over 300 gold per commander tag color, that feedback device is not working properly.

Why?
It is a completely optional improvement that will not change the dynamics of the game.
Just because YOU don’t see a reason behind it, doesn’t mean others don’t.

Fact remains that even on these forums in open threads people have been stating that they don’t have an issue with the cost. So why would a closed group be different?

lordkrall.7241:

timmyf.1490:

If there exists a player feedback device that did not throw a fit over 300 gold per commander tag color, that feedback device is not working properly.

Why?
It is a completely optional improvement that will not change the dynamics of the game.
Just because YOU don’t see a reason behind it, doesn’t mean others don’t.

Fact remains that even on these forums in open threads people have been stating that they don’t have an issue with the cost. So why would a closed group be different?

Just because YOU don’t see why it’s bad doesn’t mean that others don’t.

See? We can play this game all day. I’d rather not. If you have something constructive to say other than “I’m wrong,” I’d be happy to discuss.

timmyf.1490:

Just because YOU don’t see why it’s bad doesn’t mean that others don’t.

See? We can play this game all day. I’d rather not. If you have something constructive to say other than “I’m wrong,” I’d be happy to discuss.

And you just proved my point.

People don’t agree on stuff, and as such saying that the Player Council didn’t give the “right feedback” is very silly, unless you are trying to suggest that only feedback you agree with is right feedback.

I can’t say I have a problem with the cost of the new Commander Tags. I thought the new cost was in response to all the forum comments on how it was toooo easy to obtain a Commander Tag.

As for many of the other things listed in this thread, I really don’t have any desire to see them worked on. Fractals, Dungeons, sPvP modes…meh. Guild Halls? It would be nice, but I don’t feel any loss for them not being implemented yet.

See? The things some want may not be the things others want. Or, there may be a substantial group of people that aren’t pining after something.

Again, who knows? Probably the only ones that have concrete evidence on how people play is ArenaNet. But, if the Devs decide your suggestion is something they want to implement (and it isn’t already implemented in some form), then I hope it turns out as you desire. =)

lordkrall.7241:

Fact remains that even on these forums in open threads people have been stating that they don’t have an issue with the cost. So why would a closed group be different?

It probably wouldn’t, you’d have some members saying that it was ok and others saying that it wasn’t but I think the main reason for having this kind of group would be so that this kind of discussion (and any outcome from it) would be had before the feature was implemented so that it could feed into the design of that feature. As it is any discussion or feedback is too late to affect anything now.

No, Krall, you’re wrong.

Feedback about proposed changes SHOULD INCLUDE potential downsides, risks, and pain points, even if they don’t affect everybody equally or greatly. That’s a valid, important part of the development cycle. Within my own company, I’m frequently saying, “Hey, this thing we’re doing… it could negatively affect this use case.”

The feedback that 300 gold per color is too high, leading many commanders to stick with a single color, negating the utility of the feature is NEEDED FEEDBACK. It is responsible, accurate, necessary information.

Now, ArenaNet could still decide that the need for a gold sink for WvW commanders outweighs the potential downsides of commanders not having access to a feature seen as very important by the WvW community. But still, that feedback should have been given.

Pifil.5193:

It probably wouldn’t, you’d have some members saying that it was ok and others saying that it wasn’t but I think the main reason for having this kind of group would be so that this kind of discussion (and any outcome from it) would be had before the feature was implemented so that it could feed into the design of that feature. As it is any discussion or feedback is too late to affect anything now.

But that is only the case because you are assuming that there are no such group. Which we already know that there at least were at one time and nothing suggests it is no longer exists.

Pifil.5193:

but I think the main reason for having this kind of group would be so that this kind of discussion (and any outcome from it) would be had before the feature was implemented so that it could feed into the design of that feature. As it is any discussion or feedback is too late to affect anything now.

This guy gets it.

lordkrall.7241:

But that is only the case because you are assuming that there are no such group. Which we already know that there at least were at one time and nothing suggests it is no longer exists.

Do we know that? If I remember correctly they once consulted with some sPvPers about skill balancing but to take that and propose that some kind of hidden council of players exists seems a bit far fetched to me. Why hide that kind of thing?

…Because these types of systems always work so well…owait.

Pifil.5193:

Do we know that? If I remember correctly they once consulted with some sPvPers about skill balancing but to take that and propose that some kind of hidden council of players exists seems a bit far fetched to me. Why hide that kind of thing?

There were quite some controversy back in the days when one of the users of said hidden forum did post screen-shots and quotes from said forum. Which would very much indicate that said forum did (at least at that point) exist.

Why not hide it? If it were open people would whine about not being allowed to see what was going on in there and not being a part of it and so on. It would also making quite a bit harder to hold a NDA if people were aware of which users had access and so on.

lordkrall.7241:

There were quite some controversy back in the days when one of the users of said hidden forum did post screen-shots and quotes from said forum. Which would very much indicate that said forum did (at least at that point) exist.

Why not hide it? If it were open people would whine about not being allowed to see what was going on in there and not being a part of it and so on. It would also making quite a bit harder to hold a NDA if people were aware of which users had access and so on.

I didn’t know that (about any controversy or screenshots), must have missed it but I’d think that a lot of that controversy was the idea that some hidden organisation was calling the shots. If the group was out in the open and their dealings and feedback a matter of public record there would be far less controversy over what they say.

And who cares about any potential “whining”, there is always “whining” and there always will be, I’m sure that the guys in ArenaNet are also aware of that fact, but you don’t ignore or disregard all the good feedback because a few random people have axes to grind, you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Edit: note I’m not really convinced that an “elite council” is the best idea for GW2 either but selecting a set of representatives for various players, game modes and play styles who can feed into the design process could be very valuable if handled correctly.

Iason Evan.3806:

tigirius.9014:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

What about the 1000 or so players under NDA that test the changes they have now? How do you know they aren’t some of the forum-posters here?

I thought they already had what you are proposing.

It’s true that the Devs that play the game ask us what we are thinking. I spoke to one last Friday for awhile, and she asked me without any prompting. She also said she would pass my thoughts along to the powers-that-be.

Considering how much the Devs aren’t allowed to say, we never know if something is right around the corner….or not. /shrug

To me that’s no longer a problem you see people were like “this game is only 3 months old” and such in the beginning and they used that as an excuse to ignore the plethora of warning signs we began to see in the game post Nov 2012. Now they are using the age old “we don’t know everything that’s going on” nonsense. We’ve not known everything that’s been going on since day one. That’s not excuse for the sheer ignorant levels of ignored problems that have not been a priority since day one. Things that even the major publishers who write about this game and who have been major fans have noticed of late. It’s like they are a government, isolated from the people, doing whatever paperwork comes along without any regard for how it will affect gameplay, putting out propaganda commercials occasionally to keep the patriotism flowing.

I just don’t get how people can continue to support this kind of thing, sure they’ve made mistakes and sure we don’t know everything behind the scenes but really how long are people just going to sit around with blinders on before they too finally realize that “hey there’s something wrong here?”

We need at the very least a player council at this point because even the CDI’s have failed.

All I can go off of for player councils is how they worked in games I have played. LOTRO’s is awful. Zero communication with the regular populace. The last expansion, “Helm’s Deep” suffered because of it. STO’s was a joke. I think it is close to impossible for players to actually put the interests of the gamers at large in front of things they personally desire.

I know the things I desire are completely different than what 95% of the population would see implemented. The truth of the matter is that there are a lot people who have limited game time. They like this game because they can log in, play a few hours a week, get new story content and items to chase and it’s satisfying. I play enough that the story content every two weeks doesn’t even take up a single play session for me. Does that mean I don’t think the content is well executed? Far from it! I think this season has been really good.

I feel like they are going with what appeals to the most broad audience, it’s just that the broad audience is so casual in their playstyle that I don’t trust those people to know what makes for good design or skill implementation etc.

I feel like if you put a Council in the hands of the hard core PvP crowd, then you see all skill design rotating around Conquest. What happens when you put the Council in the hands of WvW? The same thing.

Actually as a lifetime member of STO I can tell you STO’s is not a joke at all. They’ve been instrumental at getting the developers to listen to the PVE population something this game needs despirately at this point! So long as the player councils works directly with the development team, that they represent every play style, that they are heard weekly about the problems that the game has it should work out.

the CDIs aren’t working so at this point anything is better then them ignoring the playerbase entirely.